


schon hier (already here)

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Before Sunrise AU, M/M, Making Out, Strangers to Lovers, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 20:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12373485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Love at first sight, or love in a few hours, overnight, the next day? Without knowing, Renjun had inadvertently set Jeno’s life back in motion.(In which Jeno and Renjun get lost in a foreign country together.)





	schon hier (already here)

**Author's Note:**

> wassup fuxxx school is killing me this is nothing from the WIPs I've had but I did have a Before Sunrise-type thing niggling the back of my mind for so long now (in fact, it started out as a SHINee fic that was more serious than this) and I'm kinda glad I finally got to shit it out of my system, especially since it's now a noren fic and I got to write it in a way that allows me to recall memories of Berlin with such fondness (though both of them hate it there lol)
> 
> fics where people travel is apparently my new niche also don't kill me please!!! it's been so long since I've sat down to write my legit fics that I'm getting kinda rusty :'( I suck I'm sorry thank u so much for being patient with me <3 I also wanted a fluff piece but this ain't it
> 
> the original movie is quite beautiful I really do recommend it if you're into watching two people talk for two hours and don't necessarily end up together…………

Before Jeno ever arrived in Berlin, he was too ready to leave, too sick of being cowed by the locals because he’s short and alone, his English clunky then turning flimsy the redder his face gets. _Scheiße_. Fuck Berlin. He has his bag with him in Alexanderplatz, flight early in the morning and no place to stay.

Someone is talking to him in German, handing him a flyer that promises _authentische chinesische Küche_. Jeno sees sweet and sour pork, which seems okay to him, so he nods, making the guy in front of him smile widely, a tooth jutting out slightly. “Are you Korean?” he then asks in Korean.

Jeno must be going crazy; he swore he had heard German spill from the guy’s mouth. “Yeah,” he answers.

“Vacation?”

“Yeah… Kind of. Going home tomorrow,” Jeno explains, holding his bag. Uhm. “I, uh… Do you know a cheap place where I could…”

“Stay?” the guy offers. He thinks on it for a while, face contorting. “I guess you could with me.”

“No!” Jeno protests, a little too loudly. It’s made the man wheeling around a cart of Soviet-inspired hats pause to look at them. “I just… That’s weird, but maybe you could bring me to your restaurant?”

“Now?”

“Well, yeah. I’d get lost, I think, then just give up.”

The guy snorts but places the flyers back in his bag. “It’s not my restaurant, by the way. I’m just helping out this lady I met. She’s the only one here who dares to serve real Chinese food,” he says as he rearranges the things inside. Once he’s done, he puts it on and sticks out his hand, introducing himself as Renjun.

“Renjun,” Jeno ventures.

“Close enough.”

“I’m Jeno.”

“Nice to meet you, Jeno. Did you have a nice time here in Berlin?”

Jeno shakes his head, recalling nights of currywurst and gut-busting beer in sad pubs, the egregious line for a döner kebab in Mehringdamm. He’s been to the karaoke once and never again. “Hate it” is all he tells Renjun.

“Oh? Why?”

“Guess I was doing all the wrong things,” Jeno says with a shrug, following Renjun into the train station. “I wanted to go to Europe after I graduated and this was the cheapest flight… Guess I should’ve thought it through or at least read a travel guide or something.”

Renjun frowns. “Shame I only met you now, though. How long were you here for?”

“Two weeks.”

“You could’ve gone to Munich, drown in beer…”

Jeno laughs at that. “I didn’t know. I wish I met you earlier, too. Why’re you here anyway?”

“Learning German. Turns out you can’t really perform in Vienna if you don’t know German.”

“Perform what?”

“I want to be in an orchestra here in Europe,” Renjun tells him. “But anyway, it’s cheaper to live here than in Vienna, so…”

“Sounds tough,” Jeno says with a sympathetic nod. The train had just arrived then, so they get on. Renjun quietly takes Jeno’s bag from him and sets it on the floor between his feet, the train not entirely full but out of seats.

“I’m kinda like you,” Renjun admits quietly. “This place isn’t my type. I get homesick a lot, but I only have a few more months left till I’m proficient enough to try out.”

“And you’re excited?” Jeno asks.

“Yes! I’ll be finally living out my dream,” Renjun confides, his eyes turning bright and cheeks flushed. Jeno feels excited for him, too.

“I’ll save up and go to Vienna to see you,” Jeno offers.

“You don’t even know if I’m any good,” Renjun bites back.

“You’re here learning German. I’m sure you have _some_ talent.”

Renjun smiles and looks down at his feet. “Promise you’ll see me in a few years?”

“Look for me,” Jeno finds himself promising. “I’ll bring a card and flowers.” Maybe Renjun thinks he’s just saying words, but Jeno can envision himself in a theatre lobby in Vienna—it’s more lucid than anything else in his life currently. Now he’ll have to find a job just to have money to come back… Without knowing, Renjun had inadvertently set Jeno’s life back in motion.

“I like lilies,” Renjun tells him.

“I’ll remember that.”

 

 

“What do you like to do?” Renjun asks over his boiling hot pot, steam rising to fog up his glasses.

Jeno chews on his sweet and sour pork thoughtfully then licks his lips. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“What have you seen here?” Renjun then asks. He points at the corner of his mouth and makes motions of wiping it clean, but Jeno just stares, leading Renjun to lean across the table to wipe sauce from Jeno’s mouth with his thumb.

“I… don’t know,” Jeno says weakly. “I went to the zoo… The Berlin Wall…” Several Holocaust museums that made Jeno’s heart sink. “I went to this club in Wedding?”

Renjun’s mouth curls up. “Did you like any of that?”

“I don’t know.” Renjun’s stumped, Jeno can tell. Jeno’s stumped, too, but he feels bad that he put Renjun in this situation in the first place. “I don’t really think it’s Berlin’s fault. It’s just…” Jeno’s words falter and die in his mouth, and he frowns at Renjun. “I don’t know.”

“You say that a lot,” Renjun points out.

“Ha-ha.”

“You were saying?”

“I just… I felt like I have no idea what to do, so I wanted to go somewhere far enough that I didn’t have to… think about it, you know?”

Renjun nods. “I do, and I’m sorry you didn’t have much fun,” he says softly, facing Jeno with a slight sadness.

“It’s not your fault,” Jeno says.

“I had no fun for like the first month I was here,” Renjun tells him. “I was too homesick. I didn’t want to do anything.”

Jeno lays his cheek on his knuckles, eyeing Renjun with a pout. “We sound so pathetic right now.”

Renjun laughs. “We do, so let’s go?” He goes out to pay, Jeno on his heels, and they walk back to the train station. Renjun doesn’t ask any questions when Jeno reaches for his hand, making sure that the train station crowd doesn’t swallow them whole.

 

 

“Why didn’t I come here sooner?” Jeno groans into his coffee. Renjun laughs and the sound is so nice, like bells, like something sweet.

“Welcome to Kreuzberg.”

“I _love_ it here,” Jeno declares.

“You haven’t seen the marijuana dealers,” Renjun sniffs.

“Okay, I love it even more now.”

Renjun rolls his eyes.

“But, seriously, Renjun, I ‘m having more fun with you than I had the whole time I was here,” Jeno confesses. Renjun snorts. “Seriously.”

“I like you,” Renjun says.

Jeno feels his heart stop, his face heating up before it occurs to him that it’ll be a while if he could see Renjun again, if he ever even does. Then again— “I like you, too,” Jeno confesses, enjoying the way Renjun flushes red.

“That wasn’t what I meant—” Renjun splutters out, making Jeno grin. “I mean, I like you, too! But…”

“It sucks.”

“ _Yes_.”

“Don’t think about me going home yet,” Jeno says. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to kiss you,” Renjun answers, face so red that it could fall off. Jeno shifts closer to him and happily obliges, kissing Renjun with his hands cupping Renjun’s cheeks. There’s no one in the café, the teenaged barista out on the storefront to smoke. It’s just them and the sunlight pouring in, staining the pillows and chairs.

Renjun makes a little noise against Jeno’s mouth, lips parting wider to let Jeno’s tongue slip in. He feels so real in Jeno’s hands, solid and tangible, and it makes Jeno want to pull him closer.

“We shouldn’t have,” Renjun murmurs against Jeno’s ear, sending shivers down Jeno’s spine.

“I’d regret it if I didn’t,” Jeno tells him with a kiss to Renjun’s cheek. He keeps him steady as Renjun moves closer, climbing onto Jeno’s lap in the booth. Renjun looks down at Jeno, smiling serenely while Jeno runs his hands up Renjun’s sides. “I want to see you again.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Renjun promises, fingers trailing down Jeno’s face. Jeno’s eyes slip shut even though something in him demands to keep every bit of this ingrained in his memory, like the way sunlight paints across Renjun’s skin in strokes. Anyway, Renjun ducks his head down to kiss him again, really sweetly and softly, then jumps off of Jeno when some German chatter enters the café and he has to muffle his embarrassed laughter into Jeno’s shoulder.

 

 

Renjun lives quite far from the centre, near Wannsee, but they find themselves going there anyway, if only to sit in the park by the lake there.

It’s so peaceful, and something in Jeno stills. “Now I don’t wanna go home,” he complains, making Renjun laugh again.

“Stay.”

Jeno sighs and leans his head on Renjun’s shoulder. “I want to, but…”

“But?”

“But it might be good that we just have this day together.”

“Are you having fun now?”

“Lots.”

“Me, too. I feel really comfortable with you,” Renjun says. “I haven’t felt this way since I got here.” He reaches for Jeno’s hand, which was lying on his lap, and laces their fingers together.

“Go with me to the airport,” Jeno says.

“Go with you to Seoul?” Renjun jokes.

“I’m sure there are some really good German language schools in Seoul,” Jeno jokes.

“There aren’t any where I live,” Renjun says. “Nothing much in China.”

“Seoul has everything,” Jeno offers.

“Like what?”

“Like me.”

Renjun snorts then bursts out laughing, laying kisses on Jeno’s hurt face when he realises that Jeno’s serious. “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know,” Jeno says petulantly, mouth parting at Renjun’s touch regardless.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Renjun hums, kissing mostly the corner of Jeno’s mouth.

 

 

“This is it,” Jeno says at the immigration gate. (Sleeping on Renjun’s bed felt like home, and Jeno had woken up to his head buried in Renjun’s chest, woken up to aching in his own.)

“This is it,” Renjun repeats, hands firm on Jeno’s arms. “You ready? The flight will be long.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jeno says with a smile. “We really should…”

“See each other again?”

“I can’t not see you again,” Jeno pleads.

Renjun nods. “I agree.”

“When?”

Renjun hums. “Uhm, my course finishes in six months.”

“Six months.” Jeno has no idea what plan he has for this, but whatever. This is fine. The thought makes his face break into another smile, this one wider and more sincere. “It’s a date.”


End file.
